Au Revoir Yellow Brick Road
by Argentine Rose
Summary: Valjean and Cosette DO set off for England, and Marius and Javert decide to follow them. Cue rampant stupidity, parody, OOC-Ness, cross-over and the odd musical number
1. Where to begin?

**I sing of arms and the man . . .** Or would, if Virgil had not already done so

Maybe: **Marley was dead, to begin with . . .** That's nice, snappy and – Dickensian. Try again

**All happy families are alike but all unhappy families are . . .**Oh Bugger!

Ok! Ok! How about: **In the year 1815 Monsignor Charles – Francois – Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne . . .** Surely no-one's used that before. They have? But it's so dull. Fine

Now I have it:

In Paris in the year 1832 there lived a convict, his daughter, a lawyer and an inspector of Police (first class). Obviously more people inhabited Paris than just these four. I don't know the exact population of early 19th century Paris off hand, but I'm sure that it was considerably larger than four. Larger by many, many people, some of whom we will meet in the course of this tale but most of whom we won't.  
Now the lawyer (whose name was Marius) was in love with the convict's daughter (whose name was Cosette) and she with him. However, the police Inspector (whom we shall call Javert, since that was his name) was not in love with her, nor was the convict in love with the police inspector and it is certain that neither of them were enamoured of the lawyer.  
The convict, one Jean Valjean, in particular did not love Marius. The only way I could think of to fit the words 'Marius', 'love' and 'Jean Valjean' into the same sentence run thus: " Jean Valjean would love to watch Marius choke to death on a coconut macaroon."  
He is watching the young lawyer now, sitting with his daughter in the garden, under the apple tree where they think he can't see them. Which, without the aid of the handy little spyglass he bought in a nautical shop in the Tuilleries, he would not ordinarily be able to do.  
"I love you, Sugar Bun," croons the lawyer.  
"I love you too, Snuggles," replies Cosette sweetly.  
"I love you, Tiddle Bug."  
"I love you, Pooky."  
"Honey bunch."  
""Cuddlepop."  
"Sausage."  
"Melon ball."  
Jean Valjean fights back a wave of nausea. This has to stop, and soon. For one thing, the amount he has to spend on indigestion medicines is positively ruinous! And he wants his daughter back – the sensitive, devoted, caring girl who used to like discussing literature, science and current affairs rather than the ickily hormonal birdbrain that has recently replaced her.  
"That's it!" Jean Valjean says to himself, "We'll go away. Somewhere far, far away. But it can't be just anywhere. Cosette and I must go somewhere completely devoid of romance. But where?" The old lag reflects for a moment before clapping his hands together in delight: "Oh but I am a fool! The answer is obviously England!"

"Have you packed your toothbrush, darling?"  
"Yes Daddy."  
"And toothpaste?"  
"Yes Daddy."  
"And did you make sure the lid was on properly? We don't want things leaking and making a cacky mess in your valise, do we now?"  
"No Daddy."  
"Did you pack your bible?"  
"Yes Daddy."  
"Now about an umbrella? It's very rainy in England."  
"Yes Daddy. Why are we going to England, Daddy? Are we going to go shopping?"  
Valjean briefly casts a glance over the ten trunks that Cosette has already filled with her clothes and frowns. "Ah, what the heck," he thinks, "Soon my life will be a sleazy lawyer free zone!" So he takes a deep breath and relies indulgently, "Yes darling, we'll go shopping. Now, do you have some warm slippers?"  
"Yes Daddy. Where's my diary?"  
"Bottom left hand drawer of the bureau," replies Valjean automatically.  
"How do you know? asks Cosette, pouting and looking teary, "Have you been reading it? That's simply beastly! It's private! Life's so unfair – I hate you!"  
"I snoop because I care. Anyway, you could read mine if you wanted to."  
"Why would I want to? It would be boring: "Monday – did nothing, Tuesday – nothing, Wednesday – nothing, Thursday – WALKED AROUND THE GARDEN. My heart still palpitates with excitement, Friday – nothing."  
"That's hardly fair – I went out Wednesday last. Anyway, it's a bit rich coming from the girl who devoted three pages to writing about the sparrows on the roof and SIX pages to practising signing 'Mlle Euphrasie Pontmercy'"  
"I can't believe you read that! What is your problem Daddy? Didn't you get enough love in your childhood or something?"

"And then he told me that we were going to live in England forever and confiscated my curl papers for a week as a punishment for being cheeky. It's so unfair! What are we going to do? This is dreadful."  
"Yes, your hair is looking a bit limp, my Petit-four."  
"No, about my going to England, Sweetheart."  
"I could turn up tomorrow in my shining suit of armour and carry you away on a white charger to my fairytale castle on the Brittany coast!"  
"Do you have a suit of armour, a white charger and a fairytale castle on the Brittany coast Marius my love?"  
"No."  
"Ah. Why don't you go to your grandfather and aunt, get some money, buy some nice new clothes and then ask Daddy for my hand in marriage?"  
"I can't. Grandfather and Auntie have forgotten about me. I flew up to the nursery window and there was another little boy asleep in my bed. So I flew away and went to live with the lost boys and a small crazy fairy who's secretly in love with me."  
"Did you really, Marius my love?"  
"No, I live with Courfeyrac and Eponine."  
"Why don't you come with us?"  
"I can't. I don't have a passport."  
"Oh Babycakes – promise you'll find some way of following me."  
"I promise, Chubbycheeks."  
"Peppermint."  
"Choufleur."  
"Diddums."  
Ah, young love! Is there anything more toothachingly sweet? This idyll was interrupted by the voice of Jean Valjean (Amplified by the handy speaking trumpet he had bought in a junk shop in Porte Saint-Martin) calling: "Cosette, have you triple checked your packing? Do you have everything?"  
"Everything but the kitchen sink, Daddy," Cosette grumbled as she stumped back up the garden towards the house.


	2. Voices and Visits

A/N Apologies to AmZ for the Small Voice. The idea came to me on a re-reading of 'Very Bad Day' but I have trweated the whole concept a little playfully here! Soon she will be re-christened the 'Dead Bint' and things will become a little clearer.

Marius Pontmercy walked away from the Rue Plumet with slow steps, walking, for nearly the first time in his life, with his hands behind his back. Something else he was doing for the first time in his life was thinking. "Silly, silly Marius!" he thought to himself. "Silly, silly Marius!"  
He kept up this train of thought for a good fifteen minutes before managing to progress onto: "A plonker. That's what you are Marius Pontmercy – a real plonker."  
This profound thought occupied him for another quarter of an hour. He ran his hands through his thick hair in exasperation. Finally a question popped into his head: "Well, what am I going to do?" Here all balance left him. Our little Marius had never been terribly good at making decisions or taking positive, constructive action. Constructive action, outside the narrow remit of fulfilling his daily wants, had always seemed to him a useless and wearisome procedure. Now it was torture.  
Young M Pontmercy had not always had this problem. Up until the age of eight he had been an almost normal child and he laid the blame for his 'little problem' firmly at the door of his cousin Theodule. The incident that had finally served to remove the young Marius' vestigial backbone was this:

In the summer of Marius' eighth year his blue-eyed, blond country cousin Theodule had come to stay, bringing with him his flute, which Aunt Gillenormand had told him he could play whenever he felt like it. This meant that Theodule played for what felt like twenty-five hours a day, nine days a week. Now, Marius did not like that flute one little bit. No Sirree Bob he did not! In the third week of cousin Theodule's visit he had snapped. "Something," he decided," has to be done!" So Marius had grabbed cousin Theodule's flute, snapped it in half and then beaten his cousin with the pieces. After five minutes of screams far more melodious than anything he had ever managed to produce on the flute, Theodule was rescued by Grandfather Gillenormand. The old man hit Marius several times with his walking stick and then chased him up a tree, where the terrified boy remained for two days. Upon his descent he was caught by Aunt Gillenormand and confined to his room for another forty-eight hours, during which time he suffered a pintsized nervous breakdown and came to his final decision. He decided that he would never make a decision again – a resolution to which he had made very few exceptions.

But now he had reached a crisis point. The departure of Cosette challenged his entire worldview and rule of life. At this juncture a more resolute man might have gone and pitched himself into the Seine, but Marius was preserved by his overwhelming resemblance to a jellyfish. He instead went home, where he found Courfeyrac and Grantaire engaged in an essay writing drinking game.

The rules of this game, should any of my gentle readers wish to attempt it, run thus

1) Two or more people sit down to write an essay. The last person to write a complete sentence drinks.

2) Ditto with paragraphs.

3) Each mistake of spelling, gender, punctuation or grammar is punishable by drink.

Unsurprisingly, after a few losses, it is nearly impossible to make a sustained recovery at this game.  
Grantaire was very drunk.  
Marius sat down and began to explain his predicament to his friends.  
Courfeyrac, who was more than acquainted with the details of Marius' predicament, buried himself in his treatise on conveyancing law with renewed vigour.  
Grantaire seemed to listen attentively for about five minutes before attempting to sing the queen of the night's aria from The Magic Flute. Understandably, Marius shuddered and left. There were only two options open to him. Return determinedly to the Rue Plumet or . . . He chose the one he had done before

"Silly Javert" came a small voice in the Inspector's head, "Silly, silly Javert!"  
That the thought processes of Marius Pontmercy and First-Name-Unrecorded Javert should coincide in this way is both unremarkable and extraordinary. Extraordinary in that Marius did not usually have much of a thought process for Javert's thought to coincide with. Unremarkable in that the gallant Inspector often found himself thinking "Silly, silly Javert"  
Or rather, Inspector Javert did not think it. The Small Voice inside his head thought it, and Javert was firmly persuaded that there was a difference. He did have to admit that, on this occasion, the Small Voice had a point. He had really made a mess of things today; he had been so stupid that he deserved to be beaten with chains or something  
"But you'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?" Remarked the Small Voice.  
"What?"  
"You heard me, masochist!"  
"I beg your pardon – "  
"Pervert!" She hissed maliciously inside Javert's head  
"Am not," he retorted  
"Fruit!" came the Small Voice again  
"Now hang on!"  
"Fruit! Fruit! Fruit!" Continued the Small Voice in a childish singsong, "Face it, Inspector – you're as queer as Dick's hatband that went around twice and wouldn't tie!"  
"How so?" said Javert in his most calmly official of tones, hoping to beat the Small Voice at her own game.  
"Well, it's a question of where to begin . . . What are those sidewhiskers about, for starters? And you're such a Norman –No -Mates! And a workaholic. And your so called 'Petit Defaut'?! That's weird enough in itself, but you can't even get that right – "  
"To what are you referring?"  
"Well, in order to have a 'Petit Defaut', to be what one might call 'HO – MO – SEX – U – AL" Here the voice dissolved into fits of giggles, "You see, there are two part to 'Homosexual' – the 'Homo' and the 'sexual' and you have problems with both – "  
"Oh just shut up and go away!" Javert cried in exasperation as he entered his office  
"Oh, I'm sorry! Am I interrupting something? I'll go," said the black haired youth who was standing by the office window, looking rather as if he wanted to climb out of it.  
Javert sighed, "What do you want?"


	3. Teenage Doltboy

A/N - The song is 'Teenage dirtbag' by Wheatus, just incase you didn't know.

"I have something to report," said Marius.  
"And I have a terrible sense of déjà vu," Javert replied in a tight-lipped growl.  
"I didn't know you had a 'de', Monsieur Javu! How come you ended up as a police inspector? Youngest son or something? I quite understand, my family don't like me either – "  
A sarcastic exclamation of, "Oh, I can't think why!" escaped Javert, despite his gritted teeth. The Inspector seated himself and picked up a quill and a sheet of paper. On this paper he wrote: "I, Javert, Inspector of the first class, am taking three weeks leave in order to prevent the total and irrevocable loss of my mental faculties." Then, deciding that this sounded altogether too sane, he crossed it out and wrote: "I am Napoleon Bonaparte – have gone to Austerlitz. Tata"  
Thinking better of it, Javert took a new sheet of paper and addressed Marius in a peremptory tone:  
"What is it this time, Monsieur Pontmercy? And that's without a 'de' isn't it? Spiders in your cupboard, perhaps?"  
"So, there's this man . . . and . . . and . . . his daughter, and . . ."  
"You suspect that this man is a criminal?"  
Marius blushed and looked down.  
"Or you suspect the daughter of being a criminal?"  
Marius blushed deeper and then burst into tears.  
"I love her!" he wailed, "I love her! She's my sugar creampuff pie and he's taking her away!"  
"Riiiight," said Javert, disdainfully proffering his handkerchief. Marius blew his nose into it lustily and deposited it back on the desk. Javert shuddered to think what it now contained.  
"I'm in love with Cosette Fauchelevant and we had a secret romance but now her father has found out and he's taking her to somewhere in England only I don't know where and I couldn't follow even if I did as I have no money as I've been disowned and what I want is for you to come with me and help find them," Marius managed to blurt out in one breath before launching into more convulsive sobbing. "Help me!!" he wept, sinking down to his knees and grabbing Javert's lower legs in a bear hug under the desk. The Inspector kicked Marius irritably and stood up  
"Oh, pull yourself together, you snivelling little worm!" he spat, dragging Marius back up onto his chair before resuming his own seat. "So, to recap, what you're trying to tell me is this: You're in love with some wench whose father objects to you. Can't say I blame the chap – it would be a cold day in Hell before I let you near any daughter of mine! The paterfamilias has decided to exile your little doe to England and you want my help to track them down. Accurate?"  
"That's right," said Marius eagerly.  
"Please, tell me you _are _joking! Do you have any _idea _what awaste of police time that would be?"  
"But he's a really dodgy man – I'm sure he's a criminal or something."  
"Hhhhmmm."  
"He's the guy from the Gorbeau tenement – Urbain Fauchelvent – the one who climbed out the window!"  
"Oh, now this is more like it! Shall we start again? Tell me everything."  
"Her name's Euphrasie, but I call her Cosette. She's beautiful and gorgeous and she does this adorable likkle thing – "  
"Could this get any more nauseatingly teenage?" groaned the Inspector.  
In response, Marius stood up and his eyes grew misty. Softly he began to sing

**WARNING! WARNING! RANDOM MUSICAL INTERLUDED**!

Marius: Her name is Cosette.  
I want to get married to her  
can't do that yet  
- I got way too much debt  
For a wedding. . . and while I'm skint  
My Grandpa has a mint  
But he won't give me a centime.  
Since he doesn't give a damn about me

Javert: Cos you're just a teenage dolt, Pontmercy!  
Bet you even went to see _Hernani  
_And read that creepy book by Mary Shelley!

Marius: Her father's a dick  
They hide on the rue Plumet  
He'd simply kick  
My arse if he knew the truth  
He acts like a con  
Remember how he was gone  
When you turned up back at Gorbeau  
And now he's taking away my baby!

Javert: Maybe you're not such a big dolt, Pontmercy.  
Could Urbain be Valjean? Maybe, maybe.  
And 'Cosette' was the name of Fantine's baby

Could her dad be a con?  
He's definitely suspicious  
He's Jean Valjean! The idea's quite delicious  
My hand starts to shake. If this isn't a fake  
Then what a boost for my career!  
If I catch him Gisquet will have to love me!

I will get promoted – lucky Javert!  
From gypsy gamin I'll be commissaire  
All thanks to a teenage dolt, Pontmercy, like you1

Javert shook himself like a dog and then remarked: "Well, I never thought I'd catch myself doing that! Wheatus – urgh! Anyway, in my considered opinion, there is a case here so I'm going to help you. We'll go to England and track them down. Then I get to drag Valjean's arse off to . . . jail, and you get to do to Cosette . . . whatever it is that young men do nowadays in this scandalous, debased and nauseatingly sentimental era of Romanticism. We leave tomorrow morning. Seven sharp. Don't be late!"


	4. Calloo, Calais

Four fiery horses drew a smart private carriage into the northern shipping town of Calais. Well, three fiery horses and one small piebald gelding named Milou, who really couldn't be arsed. He was tired, he was hungry and he had a terrible pain in his front off hoof that felt, for Milou was something of a hypochondriac, like the beginnings of navicular. However, this is not his story.

Inside the coach Jean Valjean tripled checked the boat tickets while Cosette picked sullenly and the lining of her muff, trying not to look as irritated as she felt. A particularly violent jolt of the carriage forced her head up into the carriages roof and she finally lost her composure, emitting a loud, high-pitched squeal of frustration.

"Calais to Douvres," said Valjean absently, "Douvres? Dover! Dover - must remember that!"

Cosette pursed her lips. Her father was really getting too into this England trip, she thought. Valjean was getting rather into it. What had began as a flight of necessity - away from the awful Sleazy Lawyer and the ever present spectre of Javert, had become a voyage of intellectual discovery for the old con. He was teaching himself English (not very successfully) and reading up on English history, contemporary politics, customs and cuisine. The latter had not taken him very long but he had found out one delightful piece of information: the English were not accustomed to cook with garlic. Now Jean Valjean had no particular animus against garlic and this snippet interested him for one reason only. Javert, his pursuer, persecutor and baleful shadow, loved garlic. The man was a kind of an anti-vampire and Valjean's overwhelming memory of the inspector's tenure in M-sur-M was that all the police reports that had come his way had bourn greasy fingerprints andthe tell-tale aroma of garlic butter. It made Valjean smile vaguely to think that, should the inspector decide to follow him, he would be utterly miserable doing so.  
The carriage clattered up outside the largest inn in the town - Les Moutons de la Mer - and the coach driver jumped down of his box and opened the carriage door.

"Monsieur has an hour or so until he has to board - he might like to wait in the inn - or he could take a walk. I will see that his luggage is transferred on board." Valjean tipped the man and asked if there was interesting to see in town should he decide to take a walk.  
"There aren't any . . . Junkshops, are there?" he asked furtively when he thought Cosette wasn't listening. The man replied that, as a matter of fact, there were some splendid brick-a-brac shops down by the dock. Valjean smiled gleefully then turned to his daughter, "Just going to take a little stroll about, darling. Wait for me in the inn."

"Where are you going, Papa?"

"Oh, nowhere," Valjean lied, blushing slightly before walking off. As he did so he could have sworn that one of the carriage horses eyed him with something very close to dislike.

Cosette strode off into the inn, knowing full well that her father was going in search of a junkshop. Well, that was just fine! If he didn't feel he could admit that he had a problem to he own daughter! She gave a hurt little sniff and then decided to look on the bright side - she felt a little more justified in her own deceit now. She unpicked the last of the stitching of her muff and withdrew the letter that she had sewn in there before leaving the rue Plumet. Striding over to the innkeeper she presented him with it, saying:

"Could you please keep this letter waiting for a M Marius Pontmercy - dark-haired, handsome fellow - there's a Napoleon in it for you."


	5. Beyond the Sea

Once again we watch a coach and four progress across the landscape of northern France. However, this time the horses are not fiery since this coach is public transport, which never works properly. The Paris-Calais diligence is badly sprung and very crowded. The air inside the carriage is close with the smell of unwashed winter coats and . . . garlic.  
The reader may guess who was aboard.

"Would you like some parsley, sonny?" asks the old lady sitting opposite Marius.

Marius would very much like some parsley as he is embarrassingly aware that he has helped the inside of the coach to smell like the kitchen ofthe grimier workers' café. He is fully aware of just how unpleasant and stomach-churning an overweening stench of garlic can be. He himself had put up with it until the first post stop, at which point he had bought a bulb of garlic from an old herb seller and devoured it whole. It had been the most disgusting experience of his life, but he had kept it down and, on returning to the coach, found that he couldn't smell the inspector at all.. He did have a slight feeling that, since then, the other passengers had been giving him evil looks, so he ignored them and maintained conversation with the inspector. Unfortunately, he now has the distinct impression that he will be bored to death before he ever reaches Calais.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I worked out that the mayor of Montreuil was a convict?"

"You did, yes," says Marius, resisting the urge to add '_Three times since we left Paris'_. Instead he says: "Surely that's not the only exciting thing to happen to you in all your time in the police?"  
"Well, no! Now, let me see . . . Let me see . . .Well, this one time, at Toulon - "

Marius shudders: "Just stop!"

"Why?"

"There isn't a flute in this story, is there?"

Javert knits his brows, perplexed: "I think a flute might come into it somewhere - or was it a French horn ? "

The inspector buries his chin in his cravat and carries on talking to himself. Marius sighs. He had never previouslythought that he would find another human being as dull as his grandfather - but here is the specimen on the seat next to him.Inspector Javert and Luc-Esprit Gillenormand, Marius reflects with worry in his heart, are actually distressingly alike - arch-conservative ancien-regime relics whoan never remember anybody's name, seem to live on snuff and cary walking sticks which they brandish wistfully at small dogs. Thankfully the inspector has not yet used his stick to lift up women's' skirts, as his grandfather was sometimes wont to do, for which Marius is suitably grateful.  
Actually, there is something that Marius wants to talk to the inspector about, but it's a little . . embarrassing.

"How long have you been with the police, Monsieur Javert?"

"Six years as a prison guard and twenty five with the municipals."

"You must know an awful lot!"

Javert smiles proudly: "Yes, I do. Why?"

"Well, um, you know how I'm meant to be a lawyer? You see, there are a few things - one big thing really - that I don't understand. Could you explain it to me please?"

"Well, what is it? I'll give it a go."

"The law"

"The law? It's a big thing. Which bit of it exactly? Procedure of arrest? Matrimonial? Property law? - that, I give you, is complex - "

"No. Just _The Law_. You know?"

"Are you telling me you don't understand anything? Not even the penal system, the municipal police or the bar?"

For an answer, Marius looks confused.

"This, I see, is going to take some time."

Javert has the distinct suspicion that he is going to be bored to death before he ever reaches Calais. It is not that he minds explaining the entire civil code, penal code and the structure of the French judiciary system. Explaining it three times over in quick succession to someone to who he may as well have read his laundry list, in Rom, backwards for all the good it does, is somewhat disheartening.  
He is halfway through describing the duties of an justice of the peace when the little twerp starts singing

"Somewhere, beyond the sea  
Somewhere, waiting for me  
Somewhere, beyond the shore - "

Fortunately for Javert, the coach pulls up on the Calais docks before he is forced to listen to any more. He jumps out of the coach and runs.

"God, I need to find and inn, preferably one with sturdy furniture!"

"Why?" asks the Small Voice.

"So that I can have a large brandy and then smack my head repeatedly into a table."

"Fair enough," says the Small Voice, "There's a place just round the corner."

Javert smiles. For once he is quite pleased to hear from the Small Voice. After that little fool Pontmercy even she is good company. His is also beginning to come to terms with her. When she first appeared he had been rather worried - which is only natural - and also irritated by her incessant kvetching and cavilling. _'Why should he be plagued by a random disembodied female_?' he asked himself. '_and who the hell could she be_?' At first he came up with two possibilities, both now disproved. The first was that the voice was his mother. Then he decided that the voice didn't swear enough. Which left possibility number two: could the voice be . . . Mathilde? Javert hoped not. Firstly that would mean that Mathilde was dead, which wasn't a nice thing to happen to anyone. Secondly, Javert knew that Mathilde would never let anything as trifling as death slow her down, meaning that he would never know a moment's peace again. It was only gradually that he came to realise the Small Voice's true identity. To be honest, he had all but forgotten about the wretched woman who had played such a brief but important part in his recent past and had been surprised to hear from her again (the fact that he had watched her die and been, unfairly, accused of killed her added somewhat to this sense of surprise). Not that he could say, hand on heart, that his spectre ('The inspector's spectre' ) was being entirely unreasonable - he probably deserved it. Anyway, he could learn to get along with her.

"Thanks," he says, quietly so the other people on the street won't thing he is marble-less, "for the directions."

"Ce n'est rien - after all, God knows it's easy to be kind." she replies slyly.


	6. Gisquet's Angels

It is a dark and stormy night. Rain lashes down upon the streets of Paris and lightning flashes wickedly in the sky overhead. The wind wuthers eerily about the towers and turrets of the Prefecture of Police.  
Perhaps I over-exaggerate slightly. The Prefecture has neither towers nor turrets, but to say that _"The wind wuthered eerily about the third floor offices_" would, I think ruin the effect. And, admittedly, I've gone to town on the weather a bit too, but . . You really think it'll be ok if I do it the realistic way? Bon, merde! Here goes nothing: 

**It was a mildly drizzly Thursday afternoon and the wind wuthered eerily about the third floor offices of the Prefecture of Police . .**

What did I tell you? That's crap!

Anyway, all manner of pathetic fallacy and dramatic meteorological conditions set our scene, and in one particular third floor office there sits a man in a high backed leather armchair, staring into the fire and stroking a large white Persian cat. A particularly violent flash of lightening illuminates the sky and the man laughs like the very embodiment of evil (he is, in fact, remembering arather funny lawyer joke that his brother told him the week before)  
With a fine sense of drama, the bells of the nearby church ominously toll six. Henri-Joseph Gisquet sighs and draws a black envelope from his waistcoat pocket. He just wants to check it's contents one more time, to make sure he's remembered everything:

_" To irregular agents 5, 47 and 101 . ."_

Addressed to the correct people, always a good start

_" . . To find and ensure the return to Paris of Sieurs H Javert and M Pont mercy . . .utmost secrecy . . "_

Good, he had been afraid he'd forgotten to mention the utmost secrecy bit

_" . . All expenses paid . . . "_

He rather wishes he had forgotten to put that bit in

_" . . This message will self-destruct when read"_

Gisquet realises rather too late that he shouldn't actually have read that bit. Unfortunately, by the time he is fully aware of quite what a stupid thing this was to do, the letter is exploding into pretty orange flames in his hand. Cursing, he leaps up, sending a very indignant cat flying, and begins to beat out the smouldering patch on his britches

"Curse those infernal messages!" he roars, "Am I fated to never, ever get the hang of them?! And it's too bloody late to do them another one - they'll be here in two minutes. I'll just have to read them my notes."

Someone up in special effects is clearly angling for an Oscar since there is another hideously overdramatic burst of thunder and lightening and the door of the office flies open to reveal the silhouette of three female forms. One of them is cackling loudly and another carries a broom. M Gisquet shivers in despite of himself.

"Er, come in," he says trying, and failing, to sound both authoritative and welcoming..

"Sorry we're late Henri - Pascale here had a bit of a spillage down in the canteen to deal with - whence the broom."

Gisquet wishes agent 5 wouldn't call him by his first name. It is just the sort of patrician familiarity he loathes - being very much a new man himself - and he feels that it undermines his professional credibility. He thinks of saying something, examines agent 5's large umbrella and thinks better of it. Instead he says: "Come in Mathilde-Esme! Sit down, please"

"Don't mind if I do" she says, sitting herself down on his chair by the fire and fanning out her skirts. Once again he thinks of saying something, but the cat jumps up into her lap and starts purring wildly so he gives up and retreats behind his desk.

"You two can come in as well, you know," he says, beckoning to the other women, who remain by the door

Number 101, a round, middle aged woman, sits on the one remaining, rather uncomfortable, chair. Number 47 sits herself down on the floor without any ceremony at all and begins scratching her head.

_"Disgusting street rats,"_ thinks Gisquet, "_ I'll be bound she has fleas!"_ Shaking off these unpleasant thoughts, he begins to read their instructions. Somewhere in the middle of the first paragraph, Mathilde-Esme interrupts him; "With all due respect, why send us? Why send three women? Why not send one of Vidocq's lot?"

"Because" replies Gisquet, scanning his notes for a suitable answer, "Because, because . ."

"Oh, I see," says Mathilde-Esme, nodding sagely, "_Because_. So, who are we meant to be looking fort then?""

"Inspector Hervé Javert - "

Numbers 47 and 101 register vague interest and Mathilde-Esme snorts.

" - And the Baron Marius Pontmercy."

Mathilde-Esme now looks very surprised and slightly worried but all she remarks is, "My, that's a curious combination!"

The rest of the interview passes without incident until Gisquet gets to the end of his notes, which he has been reading, word for word with out really thinking so that he finishes by saying: " - this message will self destruct when read"

"You what?" enquires Mathilde-Esme, "Pardon?"

"This message will self destruct when read," Gisquet repeats lamely, wishing that Javert were there. These sorts of things never seemed to happen when the Inspector was present.

"It's a verbal message - how on earth is it meant to self destruct?" Mathilde-Esme continues acidly The infernal fleabag on the floor snickers

"Yes well, you know what I mean!" he snaps irritably, "And just because you're an irregular doesn't men you can backchat me! Now, there are still some things that need to be arranged before your departure so I shall contact you all in writing when I next want you. Dismissed."

Mathilde-Esme rises and leads the other two women from the room. looking much like the leader of a coven. Gisquet notices with displeasure that his cat follows her.


	7. Pascale Henry

A/N Not the most exciting chapter ever, but hey. Lots of OOC-ness on the part of Aunt Gillenormand, for which I apologise (I've thoroughly Granny Weatherwax-ed her!). I make no apologies for Pascale, however, since the only person who ever mentions her is Javert

Pascale Henry has been back in her canteen just long enough to slap the kitchen boy twice when a message arrives for her from Monsieur Gisquet. The bearer of the note is a whey faced clerk to whom Pascale would certainly have offered something to eat ere she not so flustered by this most unusual flurry of communication from the Prefect. Distractedly, she sits down next to the stove to read her message, wondering as to the meaning of it and leaving the poor pen-pusher to go hungry.  
She feels a little overcome, and fans herself with the note before reading it. Addressed by Monsieur le Préfet twice in a day! She just isn't used to that sort of attention.  
To be honest, Pascale Henry isn't much used to attention of any sort. True, Monsieur Javert sometimes praises her cooking (which Monsieur Daguerre then praises more just to show that whatever could be done by an anti-social gypsy from Pontoise could be done better by an alcoholic Corsican from Place de Chatelet). Also true is that some of the younger officers solicit her advice on matters romantic - to which her response is usually, "Have another pie, dear". Oh, and she sometimes has nice conversations with the man who brings the meat. Other than that . . ?  
She is a widow, no living children, makes good pastry. She's never really considered that there might be more to her. She wonders, for the thousandth time, what made M Gisquet ask her to be an irregular agent in the first place. The request had come, quite out of the blue, about three months ago and, at the time, she had been rather pleased by it, if a little baffled. From that day to this she had done little but prepare extra food for large parties of 'gentlemen' from the Surété and the most exciting thing that had happened to her was that Eugene Vidocq had winked at her. Pretty exciting, I'm sure you'd agree (well, I'd be pretty chuffed!), but hardly grand espionage.  
Until this morning, when she was plunged into a world of missing policemen, revolutionary Bonapartistes and ineffective letters of mass-destruction. Truth be told, she feels rather inadequate to the task.. Pascale has never really had much to do with spies, dashing master criminals derring-do and the dangerous classes before, what with being the daughter of a haberdasher and all. The closest she had ever come in her unremarkable youth to the forces of crime was when someone tried to give short change in the shop. Then, aged eighteen, Mlle Rouleaux had wed Laurent Henry, and embarked upon an equally unremarkable adulthood. M Henry (who worked as an assistant to the Comte Angles) had been a mild-manner man who had nicknamed his wife "my little partridge" and had died, aged thirty seven, because he absolutely refused to look before he crossed the street, as a result of which he was knocked down by a fiacre.  
It isn't exactly the background one expects for a police spy - look at M Vidocq. She isn't even sure if women should do this short of thing. If they should then surely there are broads out there who were a better bet than her. Like that agent 47. Barely sixteen and she had clearly been around a bit. _"Been around a bit_"? That sounds rather rude, doesn't it? Don't want to cast aspersions on anyone's moral character. Probably better say that she knew her way around. Whatever, the Jondrette lassy clearly possessed a whole set of life skills that had passed Pascale by entirely.  
But it isn't Jondrette/no. 47 that really intimidates her. That position is reserved for agent 5. After all, savvy street-urchins are seven a sous, but this woman? This Mathilde Esme? She was truly strange. And she REALLY seemed to know what she was doing. _"Which is good_," reflects Pascale, _"Since I haven't a clue_" At first, during the interview, she had simply thought her a querulous upper-class spinster but, afterwards, she had exhibited hidden depths. Pascale had been discussing the disappearance of Monsieur Javert and this Marius fellow, with whom La Jondrette seemed to be acquainted. The Gamine had voiced the opinion that her "Mariuskin" (?) had been kidnapped by Javert, who had finally lost all semblance of the plot and was holding the young man hostage in a rehearsal room at the Comedie Fracaise and attempting to teach him to sing Mozart arias. Whereas Pascale had heard from a number of sources within the prefecture that Javert had been kidnapped by a dangerous international revolutionary who would only release him upon delivery of three and a third million francs, the dismantling of the British and French colonial system and a shrubbery.  
Agent 5 had looked at them scornfully and said: "You two are either extremely stupid or have been misinformed by someone who is. For the sake of this mission, I pray to God it's the latter. If I know either of the parties involved it's probably a lot simpler and less exciting that that!" With that she had sprung into a fiacre with surprising agility, barked, "Rue des Filles du Calvaire" at the driver and sped off into the distance.  
Pascale is woken from these reveries by the smell of something acrid and oniony - something is burning on the stove. She leaps up, removes the pan from the heat, considers smacking the kitchen-brat over the head with another pan, thinks better of it and sits back down. She picks up the letter, reflecting that it might be good idea to actually read the thing. It says:

**"Agent 5 is to go undercover at the notorious haunt of student radicalism, the Café Musain, where a post has been found for her. She is to leave immediately - "**

_"Café Musain?"_ she thinks, _"Home of student radicalism indeed! Home of very bad pastry, more like! Oh well, at least I can handle the cooking part. Best be off then._" She looks at the time on the letter, it is 6.45. The time now is 8.00 and she hopes the prefect has a slightly elastic definition of 'immediately'. Deliberately, she does not read the end of the letter but casts it into the fire, where it does not burn. She puts on her pelerine, grabs her cat, Mistigris, by the scruff of the neck and walks to the door. The she turns back and opens a drawer, from which she withdraws a large rolling pin. Pascale caresses it thoughtfully and then slips it into her bag. After all, one never knows when that sort of thing will come in handy.


	8. Minky the Monkey

A/N - Just a short token chapter to show that I'm alive and so is this story

Furtive, from the Latin "fur" meaning "thief". So, if we were to describe Jean Valjean as being furtive as he entered Casimir Cohen-Jones's Junk Emporium we would be correct on a number of levels. Not that Jean Valjean had actually stolen anything today. After all, he is in a junkshop – they don't sell bread!

He still looked pretty dodgy for all that, picking up and admiring a selection of door knockers and bell pulls laid out on a table near the door. Dodgy enough so that M Cohen-Jones who is, as his name in fact does not suggest, neither Jewish nor Welsh (He hails from the part of the world known to the Twenty-first Century as Liberia)

"Can I help Monsieur at all?" Casimir enquires, performing an odd little dance to try and get a look at the stranger's back pockets without appearing to be looking

"Yes," says Valjean in a whisper that will be familiar to anyone who has ever worked in a newsagent's shop and been asked for a dirty magazine, "I'm looking for some . . . bric-a-brac"

"Something for the weekend, Sir?" says Casimir Cohen-Jones with a smile and a wink, "Well, you've come to the right place, but I must warn you that I run my emporium in a slightly unorthodox manner. You see, I firmly believe that the clutter chooses the collector."

Casimir takes a step back from Jean Valjean and looks at him closely, scratching his chin with thumb and forefinger and narrowing his eyes.

"How about a nice Seventeenth Century prayer book?" he says finally, holding one out to Valjean. Valjean takes it and the tattered book immediately begins to struggle violently, finally managing to break free and flap away to assume a perch on the shop's dusty rafters where it stays, looking down on them malevolently and occasionally croaking "Agnus Dei"

"Evidently not," says Casimir, "I've got a lovely walking stick here if Sir would like to try it"

He passes Valjean a walking stick which the old con would never have thought of calling 'lovely' in any circumstances since it was black and knobby and had a rather grumpy looking brass snake coiled on top of it in place of a handle. Obediently, however, Valjean takes it and gives it a wave, an action that causes a large dusty fishbowl standing in the corner to shatter into a thousand pieces.

"Not that either," says the now slightly annoyed Cohen-Jones, snatching back the cane.

"What about this?" enquires Jean Valjean, picking up a gold medallion from the counter. Immediately there is a rushing of wind through the shop and a flash of light.

"Ooooh," says Casimir Cohen-Jones with a look of surprised relief on his face, "I think it likes you"

"How much?"

"Five francs to you – to be honest I've always found the thing rather creepy. Only – "

"Only what?" says Valjean, preparing himself for a long tale of the trinket's sentimental value and a greatly inflated price tag.

"Only you have to take what comes with it, Sir. Kind of a job lot."

Mr. Casimir reaches down behind the counter. We hear some squeaking and an exasperated cry of "Don't you DARE bite me you little toe-rag!" and then he re-emerges clutching a very small monkey. Immediately as the monkey sees Valjean it scampers towards him, leaps onto his head and curls up on top of his hat.

"Five francs and the monkey it is," says Casimir, "would Monsieur like a bag with that?"

As Mr. Cohen-Jones shuts the shop door behind him, Jean Valjean looks over his shoulder at the little old Liberian man, who is mournfully sweeping up the pieces of the shattered fish bowl

"What a weirdo!" he says under his breath. Still, on the bright side, the medallion will be easy to hide from Cosette and . . . Eureka! He can give the monkey to Cosette as a present! Jauntily he strides down the street but perched in the window of he shop he spots a rather fine stuffed vulture. He glances up at the name above the shop: Hamish Hernandez's Bric-a-brac Bazaar (by a strange coincidence Hamish Hernandez is, despite his name, actually Welsh.)

Valjean sighs. It can't hurt to take a look, can it?

* * *

"Oh Daddy!" Cosette squeals.

Jean Valjean automatically flinches at his adoptive daughter's high pitched tone; "Yes dear?"

"Oh Daddy, he's beautiful!" she continues, snuggling the little monkey up in her fichu, "Aren't you? Aren't you beautiful? You are! Yes you are a booty-ful likkle monkeykins!"

The monkey does whatever it is that monkeys do in lieu of purring.

"So you don't mind about the vulture?"

"What vulture?"

"Never mind"

"Thank you very much for Minky, Daddy!"

"Who's Minky?"

"The Monkey, Daddy. I thought it was cut because mink are soft and furry with little sharp teeth – like Minky – and 'Minky' sounds like the English word for 'monkey'.

"But the English word for 'monkey' is 'singe', isn't it?"

"No, that's French, Daddy. Aren't you silly? Isn't he a silly daddy, Minky? Isn't he?"

Depressed by his lack of prowess in English, Valjean strolls back to his cabin to stroke his vulture. With an odd sort of irony he has called the _vautour _'Vulture' which, he believes, is the English word for 'lawyer'. This he has done as an act of remembrance for poor, sleazy little Marius.


End file.
